Blocked or non-extendible oligonucleotides and polynucleotides include moieties, such as terminator nucleotides, which prevent additional nucleotides from being added to the oligonucleotides and polynucleotides under a given set of reaction conditions. These molecules are commonly used in various nucleic acid technologies. To illustrate, blocked oligonucleotides are used as probes in some applications, such as a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to prevent probes from being extended during the extension steps of the reaction. To further illustrate, blocked oligonucleotides are also used as primers in certain applications. For example, pyrophosphorolysis activated polymerization (PAP) is a PCR method that involves primers having 3′ terminal terminator nucleotides, which are removed by pyrophosphorolysis before the primers can be extended. Pre-existing PAP methods typically use dideoxy-terminated primers and dideoxy-incorporating polymerases. The polymerases used in these pre-existing approaches often have limited abilities to extend primer nucleic acids and accordingly, produce inefficient amplification reactions.
Additional oligonucleotides and polynucleotides that include terminator nucleotides of use in real-time PCR, PAP, and other nucleic acid technologies are desirable. The present invention provides oligonucleotides and polynucleotides comprising 2′-terminator nucleotides that are useful in these applications. These and a variety of other features of the invention will be apparent upon a complete review of the following disclosure.